Today, host Lorie Jones welcomes the inspiring Stacey Ray, founder and CEO of Sisterhood Travels, a vibrant community dedicated to creating meaningful travel experiences for women. Stacey looks back on how she reconstructed her life after personal loss, building a business—and a movement—centered on connection, sisterhood, and empowering women to find joy and adventure at any age.
From overcoming naysayers and industry obstacles to prioritizing kindness, compassion, and authentic connection, Stacey shares her journey from a 30-year career in healthcare to launching a thriving travel business in her 60s. Lorie and Stacey also discuss the power of self-belief and community, learning from financial lessons, and how women can lift up women to become truly fearless and invincible.
Whether you’re dreaming of your next adventure or looking for inspiration to believe in your own ideas, this episode is rich with candid stories, actionable wisdom, and the reminder that it’s never too late to reinvent yourself.
Show Highlights:
- How Stacey Ray built the 46,000-member Sisterhood Travels. [05:10]
- What does roommate matching involve for solo women travelers? [10:12]
- The trip vs. experience differentiator for mature women. [11:48]
- Banning “mean girl” syndrome to foster a culture of kindness. [14:10]
- Rising above self-sabotage and finding life after bereavement. [16:55]
- Saving for life’s inevitable late season without reckless debt. [25:22]
- Navigating scaling anxiety in business growth obligations. [32:05]
- How to answer ageism and female rivalry in shared industries. [35:55]
- Advice for young women on self-belief and true value. [43:16]
- Creating invincible—not invisible—women later in life. [47:58]
Connect with Stacey Ray at https://www.linkedin.com/in/staceyrayceo/ on LinkedIn.
To learn more about Sisterhood Travels, visit https://sisterhoodtravels.com/.
Find Stacey’s podcast, Life. Reimagined. with Stacey Ray at https://sisterhoodtravels.com/lifereimagined/.
If you enjoyed this episode, please go to Apple Podcasts and leave a review!
For more information about Lorie Jones, go to https://fearlessfinancialadvisors.com/fearless-females.
00:01.92
Lorie Jones
Good morning, fearless females. So today our guest is Stacey Ray. She’s the founder and CEO of Sisterhood Travels and my personal, just who I want to be when I grow up. I have looked at what you’ve done, Stacey. I’m so excited to have this conversation for you and I cannot, or with you, and I cannot tell you how much I appreciate you being on the show.
00:25.11
Stacey Ray
Oh my gosh. Thank you so much, Laurie. It is my honor and pleasure to be here. I love talking about this and especially with someone who’s a kindred spirit. yay. ya
00:35.30
Lorie Jones
ah i love the I love the idea. um i think the thing that I love most is I just love the idea of this idea of sisterhood travels, of like finding women in all different areas of life and the world who you can kind of bring together and connect and and and build that bond.
00:52.96
Lorie Jones
Because that idea of sisterhood really hits me in a deep spot. So i love that you I love that you do that. And I can’t wait for my listeners to hear a little bit more about that.
01:03.55
Stacey Ray
Thank you so much.
01:06.08
Lorie Jones
So my first question is always, I’m a reader. i love reading. Any and all suggestions. What’s your favorite book?
01:13.76
Stacey Ray
Oh boy. Well, I’ve got to tell you my favorite book of all time is the captain and the Kings by Taylor Caldwell. It’s an oldie, but goodie. It’s a historical fiction novel.
01:29.45
Stacey Ray
um And it’s very subtly a story, I think, of the Kennedys. But that’s one of my most favorite books. And then I absolutely loved Jonathan Livingston Siegel.
01:48.50
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
01:49.27
Stacey Ray
And i think I loved it because I loved the premise of flying and being free. yeah.
01:58.00
Lorie Jones
Yeah, that idea of freedom speaks to you, doesn’t it?
02:00.33
Stacey Ray
yeah Yes, yes, it does.
02:01.33
Lorie Jones
Yeah. ah um Well, I love that I haven’t read either one of them and I have a ah stack that just keeps getting bigger and bigger.
02:09.06
Stacey Ray
I know, right? Yeah.
02:12.11
Lorie Jones
I’m like, i I need to schedule at least a three week vacation to a beach so I can read all these books, right?
02:13.18
Stacey Ray
yeah
02:18.05
Stacey Ray
And then if you could focus instead of sleeping and napping at the beach, that would really be great, right?
02:25.29
Lorie Jones
I know it does tend to some naps come into that for sure.
02:28.37
Stacey Ray
I know.
02:30.40
Lorie Jones
So tell me a little bit about what you do. tell Tell my listeners about your journey. Like, how did you get started? How did you get where you are today? And kind of what do you do? Tell us a little bit about you. Mm
02:40.06
Stacey Ray
Okay. Well, um I actually worked in healthcare care four over 30 years.
02:43.61
Lorie Jones
hmm.
02:44.00
Stacey Ray
thirty years um my husband passed away traveled world and we, uh, and you know he and i had traveled the world and we ah there was nowhere that we didn’t want to go, quite frankly.
03:01.83
Stacey Ray
And that’s what we did.
03:02.18
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
03:03.51
Stacey Ray
And, you know, we actually said the one thing that will be great is when we both die, we won’t have any regrets because we will have done what we want to do.
03:14.18
Stacey Ray
And we didn’t want to spend our lives putting money into what I call stuff around the house. You know, we wanted to use our money to create memories.
03:27.02
Stacey Ray
And I always joke, I say, I’m always going to be one of those ladies someday that might be in a memory care unit. And I’ll be talking about all these trips and they’ll go, oh, that poor thing, you know, like she thinks she was there, but I really was.
03:42.16
Stacey Ray
So, ah but anyway, my husband passed away in 2017.
03:42.70
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
03:46.02
Stacey Ray
And after I got through the really, I’ll call it my catatonic paralytic state of the next couple of years, I realized that I did still wanna travel.
03:50.70
Lorie Jones
Hard hair. Yeah.
03:54.07
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
03:58.10
Stacey Ray
I did wanna still venture out. And I was, ah i didn’t know how to do that because all of my friends were either still working. I was 58 at the time.
04:08.96
Stacey Ray
My friends were still working and, ah or they were busy with grandchildren or they had no interest in travel or they had no money. The list goes on and on. And I kept thinking there’s got to be other women like me.
04:23.59
Stacey Ray
And so I decided kind of on a whim to start a company where solo women could travel together.
04:34.41
Stacey Ray
i was very experienced. I had my side hustle was group travel anyway. um you know, and I had a company to do that, um that I had kind of put on hold while my husband was sick and Long story short, I decided without much forethought or research or anything, and I don’t recommend that normally for a business, ah I was going to try to put together this company. And so I immediately decided I wanted to call it Sisterhood Travels because I wanted us to be, I really wanted it to be clear what we do, that we’re for women and we’re about friendship and connection.
05:17.45
Stacey Ray
And so I did, and I do recall when I was starting this, ah someone that I really had respected in the industry said, that’s an awful name for your company.
05:28.90
Stacey Ray
That’s terrible. Nobody’s going to want to do that. And I said, well, with all due respect, that’s what I’m going to do. So in any event…
05:39.83
Stacey Ray
um right after COVID, we were able to get started. So 2023, we took our first official trip to Iceland.
05:51.60
Lorie Jones
Wow.
05:52.33
Stacey Ray
We grew from about 250 members in our Facebook group. I have a private Facebook group that I set up and ah We started about 250 women who were, I think, friends and friends of friends and family who maybe felt sorry for me. And they were like, okay, I’ll i’ll support her.
06:14.25
Stacey Ray
And we now have just about 46,000 highly engaged members.
06:19.84
Lorie Jones
well
06:20.24
Stacey Ray
And it’s still a private group. We we have our you know our public stuff, but this group is meant to be a safe, supported group.
06:30.74
Stacey Ray
what I call sisterly site where we talk about the trips, but we also show compassion and, and positivity and things like that.
06:32.97
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
06:43.47
Stacey Ray
So we never spent a dollar on advertising. We grew by word of mouth and we just started selling out trips like faster than I could produce them.
06:55.39
Lorie Jones
yeah
06:58.30
Stacey Ray
um,
07:01.23
Stacey Ray
You know, it’s it’s been amazing to get to this point because I’ve learned something really profound.
07:11.72
Stacey Ray
Travel is the vehicle to achieve our mission and our mission is truly to connect women at an age where that is extremely difficult.
07:24.97
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
07:25.59
Stacey Ray
And true friendships and true relationships are being made. These aren’t like drive-bys where I saw you on the trip, by maybe I’ll see you again sometime in my lifetime.
07:39.04
Stacey Ray
These are real friendships that are being made.
07:41.66
Lorie Jones
yeah i I love that. You know, if you look at your site, you’ve got like, you can sign up to find a friend basically, right? During the trip, you can sign up and you’re like, hey, if you want me to match you with somebody, and which I think.
07:54.26
Stacey Ray
Yeah. Yeah, we do roommate matching. It’s been extremely successful. I’ll tell you a funny story because we get we ask very little. you know we We know your age and we know your where you’re from and we ask you if you smoke.
08:11.48
Stacey Ray
That’s it. not because we banned smokers, but because we wouldn’t put a smoker in with a non-smoker in a roommate match.
08:16.56
Lorie Jones
and a nonsmoker.
08:19.28
Stacey Ray
And we, we get a lot of women who go, can’t you find out if they snore, you know, things like that. And I’m always like, look, we’re not a dating service.
08:28.22
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
08:28.74
Stacey Ray
Number because they want to ask all these different questions. I’m like, but number two, ah First of all, most people don’t even know if they snore.
08:40.33
Stacey Ray
You might be a snorer and not know it. So no, we don’t ask that.
08:43.25
Lorie Jones
yeah
08:44.91
Stacey Ray
We recommend you get some earplugs or something, but we have an excellent success rate with our roommate matches.
08:47.73
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
08:52.50
Stacey Ray
And yes, many of them go on to ah not only travel on other trips, but together. So it’s great.
09:03.64
Lorie Jones
Yeah. I think that’s so neat because ah it is it isn’t like a business that you’re building. it is It’s like you said, it isn’t the trips. That are the thing. It’s that idea of sisterhood and coming together and finding connection and finding someone who you who loves to do what you do.
09:23.44
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
09:23.59
Lorie Jones
and and you might find someone to ah to fill that empty spot that, you know, that person is missing.
09:29.87
Stacey Ray
and and And that’s the thing that I’ve noticed is that, you know, we actually don’t work at selling the trip per se, as much as we do the experience.
09:44.98
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
09:46.07
Stacey Ray
And one of the things that’s really important to me when I create all these itineraries is, and yes, I’m still doing that. Um, is that every single itinerary reflects who we are and what we’re about and what women of a certain age want and expect.
10:05.88
Stacey Ray
And so, A, we don’t do budget trips because we can’t, when when you do a budget trip, you cannot produce the experiences that we want to offer.
10:14.94
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
10:16.70
Stacey Ray
Every experience is designed to make sure it’s inclusive and it’s an opportunity for you to really meet women who you may have many common interests in But the biggest part is that we all come to the table with a story, right?
10:37.75
Stacey Ray
A story of loss or challenges or sadness, whatever the case may be, or triumph, you know, certainly that. Whatever that story is, it is so easy to feel like I’m the only one.
10:54.91
Lorie Jones
yeah.
10:55.91
Stacey Ray
And then you come on this trip and you find out, wait a minute, no, I’m not. That girl, Lori, she knows exactly what I’m going through. She’s been there herself. And so it’s it’s support in a whole different way because look, you know I’m a widow.
11:16.83
Stacey Ray
I meet plenty of other widows um and our circumstances are all different. i mean, we don’t have the exact same story, but we do have commonalities.
11:24.97
Lorie Jones
Right.
11:27.91
Stacey Ray
Like we all hear that people think, gee, I wonder how long she’s going to milk that one, you know, from someone who’s never been widowed or for those us who are not divorced.
11:38.25
Lorie Jones
Oh, yeah.
11:42.32
Stacey Ray
we’re like, God, I can’t believe she’s like still pining after him or, you know, like things like that. Like all of these judgments, our group is a no judgment zone. And that is exemplified by the spirit of the women who travel with us.
12:02.03
Stacey Ray
We do not allow toxic negativity. We have a very um firm code of conduct. And so we apply that code of conduct not only to the Facebook group, but also to the way in which we speak to our team and dealing with them.
12:18.43
Lorie Jones
hu
12:20.56
Stacey Ray
And my thought is we have zero tolerance for Mean Girls Syndrome because
12:25.60
Lorie Jones
I love that. That’s what I was just going to say. you don’t like You don’t allow mean girls. I love that.
12:30.02
Stacey Ray
We do not. And I will tell you this, and I think your listeners will be reassured by this, especially those who maybe haven’t found their voice yet.
12:41.26
Stacey Ray
We don’t allow it. And I don’t allow it in the group. I don’t allow it in the way that you speak to our team. Because ah that’s the way you’re behaving before you even come on a trip with us,
12:52.74
Stacey Ray
What can we expect when you’re on the trip? And I’m sorry, everyone on that trip has paid a lot of money to have a most wonderful experience and you don’t get to ruin it for them.
13:04.34
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Mm-hmm. ah
13:05.37
Stacey Ray
And conversely though, we teach women, not that we have to teach very hard because most of our women are so amazing, but they show grace to each other because You know, some don’ some days are harder than others, right? So, you know, someone who’s been bebopping along, having a great time, and today they’re not their usual friendly, nice self.
13:34.66
Stacey Ray
We don’t know what today is. Maybe it’s the anniversary of their husband or their child or their parents’ death. or you know, maybe they have aches and pains so severe and they don’t want to talk about it. You know, you don’t know what people are going through. so On the one hand, no toxic negativity, no mean girl syndrome.
13:57.96
Stacey Ray
On the other, let’s show compassion and grace and kindness.
14:03.93
Lorie Jones
my goodness.
14:04.40
Stacey Ray
And it’s a perfect, a perfect storm, if you will.
14:09.54
Lorie Jones
I love it. I really do love all of those values. They’re just speaking to me. One of my core values is kindness. And and i and I feel like like the whole world could be changed if we were just a little bit more kind in a lot of ways. so
14:22.92
Stacey Ray
You know, i always say it takes so much less effort to be kind than it does to be mean.
14:29.69
Lorie Jones
Yeah, yeah.
14:30.53
Stacey Ray
ah why wouldn’t you opt for the time saver if nothing else, right?
14:36.15
Lorie Jones
So, Stacey, tell me a little bit about the best investment that you’ve made in yourself throughout your journey and your career. Was there something that you’ve done that you’re like, oh, my gosh, i just I wouldn’t be where I’m at today if I didn’t do this?
14:53.09
Stacey Ray
Yeah, I think my best investment was believing in myself when nobody else did. I’ve had many, many, many, many ideas in my life for businesses and things like that, although, you know, I always had my job, but
15:15.36
Stacey Ray
I found that i would self-sabotage. I would listen to all the outside voices and I would finally talk myself out of it.
15:24.62
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
15:26.78
Stacey Ray
The best investment that I made was believing in this because it was never about money. It was selfish.
15:39.31
Stacey Ray
I wanted to travel and I wanted other women to travel with.
15:45.65
Stacey Ray
And I realized my selfish desire is probably the desire of so many women. And so there were a lot of naysayers and quite frankly, there weren’t many companies doing what I wanted to do.
15:59.81
Stacey Ray
There are other companies out there that do women only travel, but they are strictly about the trips and they’re about the bottom line.
16:09.02
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
16:12.77
Stacey Ray
And we’re not, we still are not, which is why I am quite frankly, the lowest paid person in my company. um But it was, you know, believing in myself took a real act of faith because it wasn’t that I was lacking in confidence. I was lacking in
16:38.38
Stacey Ray
the confidence to see it through, even when other people were telling me, I don’t think this will work.
16:44.15
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
16:44.62
Stacey Ray
I think you’re narrowing yourself too much, blah, blah, blah. And so it’s it’s been a joy to watch what we’ve achieved, knowing that it was my vision.
16:59.89
Lorie Jones
yeah How did you get past the, because you did listen to the naysayers early on, and and this time you didn’t. was it just Was it just like your heart was telling you you can’t not do this? Or like, how did you get past it this time?
17:16.52
Stacey Ray
I’ll be honest with you. So I originally came up with a concept right before COVID. And, ah you know, we didn’t we weren’t aware that COVID was going to happen.
17:29.59
Stacey Ray
And i had retired from healthcare care because after going through what I went through with my husband, I was like, I can’t step foot in a hospital again.
17:33.04
Lorie Jones
Oh, yeah.
17:37.98
Lorie Jones
oh yeah
17:39.76
Stacey Ray
And I was kind of at that place in my life at that point where And zero purpose. None. i mean, I really was at the point where, you know, my daughter would text me and say, have you eaten today?
17:55.26
Stacey Ray
Have you taken a shower today? I mean, I just like sit on like the couch in my husband’s seat in a block and just stare into space for hours and hours, day after day, month after month.
18:04.40
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
18:09.31
Stacey Ray
And so when I started thinking this idea and people were telling me, I don’t think this is such a hot idea.
18:18.43
Stacey Ray
i kept working on it anyway. And then COVID hit. Well, as it would turn out, my license had gone inactive and ah my licensure board was begging us to come back to the hospital. We’re desperate. this is And I was watching and i was like, wow, I prepared for this my whole career. never thought it would happen.
18:45.19
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
18:46.23
Stacey Ray
So I kind of woke up one day and I was like, you know what? I have nothing to lose. You know, if something happens to me and I get sick, it’s okay. I’ve had a great life. You know, I have like this whole philosophical attitude.
18:56.56
Lorie Jones
yeah
18:59.16
Stacey Ray
Well, I went back to the hospital. I worked in ICU with the ah COVID patients and the non-COVID ICU patients for 19 months.
19:11.26
Stacey Ray
And in that 19 months, I saw more people die than I had seen cumulatively in my 30 plus year career.
19:19.60
Lorie Jones
Oh my gosh.
19:22.12
Stacey Ray
And I’m going to say something that a lot of people don’t understand, but all that death and horror brought me back to life. And I was bound and determined that I was going to make the rest of my life worth it.
19:43.14
Stacey Ray
and nobody was gonna stop me from living. Yes, my husband is gone. I’m devastated, i miss him. Look, it’s seven years, I still miss him, okay?
19:54.05
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
19:54.97
Stacey Ray
It’s not gonna change. But what changes, I woke up one day and said, today is the day I start living again. And that was the epiphany for me, that I was willing to shut those outside voices up and even some of the internal ones and say, no And I think especially knowing how much people had been locked up and cooped up and alienated.
20:21.85
Stacey Ray
And for older women, there is nothing worse.
20:24.17
Lorie Jones
sir
20:25.69
Stacey Ray
I mean, they couldn’t see their kids. They couldn’t see anybody. I said, no, not going to do it.
20:34.63
Lorie Jones
I love that. ah that i I just will sit with that story for a minute because that is… It’s really powerful to to think that like your you just your heart was telling you, like i am not this is not who I am.
20:51.18
Stacey Ray
right
20:51.31
Lorie Jones
i am going to be this person.
20:53.91
Stacey Ray
That’s right.
20:54.03
Lorie Jones
and And you put on those blinders and you’re like, anything outside of this is not good.
20:56.50
Stacey Ray
I did. i did. And it felt good, Lori. It felt really good. I started, people would say to me, gosh, you seem happier than you have in a long time.
21:10.14
Stacey Ray
And they go, don’t you have PTSD? And I go, of course I do. I’m not focusing on that. I mean, would I go back to work in the hospital now?
21:15.37
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
21:17.78
Stacey Ray
Of course not.
21:19.19
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
21:19.44
Stacey Ray
You know, but That’s not the point. I learned so many lessons from loss.
21:27.48
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
21:29.03
Stacey Ray
And it’s that I get to choose how I want that loss to play out in my life. And I want to see it as something powerful that can change the world for good.
21:44.13
Stacey Ray
And that really was what I kept thinking was,
21:44.17
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
21:47.96
Stacey Ray
If we do this, if I do this, because I’ll tell you when I first started, did everything myself. I created the itineraries. I did all the bookings. I worked with all the suppliers. I managed all the logistics. I handled all the communications, the website, every 100% to do it.
22:11.17
Stacey Ray
And I was like, this is happening.
22:15.80
Lorie Jones
and yeah yeah
22:16.88
Stacey Ray
slowly, but surely we were able to build up the team, you know, to the three. And even now we have a lean team because, you know, travel is not a high profit margin industry.
22:29.13
Stacey Ray
I know people think I must have this, you know, i trust me, that is not the case.
22:32.35
Lorie Jones
lavish lifestyle
22:37.47
Stacey Ray
I’m just like everybody else, but I, what I do have in riches is friendships and heart and soul and joy.
22:53.34
Stacey Ray
And that’s the biggie because I started to feel joy again. And I don’t care how much money you have in the bank, it will never replace that feeling of joy.
23:08.25
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
23:08.68
Stacey Ray
Joy is different than happiness, as you know. We can all feel relatively happy. But joy, that’s very visceral, isn’t it?
23:17.50
Lorie Jones
Yeah, it is. It’s a feeling that just comes deep from inside of you and it exudes out of you as well.
23:23.22
Stacey Ray
Absolutely.
23:24.23
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
23:24.52
Stacey Ray
Absolutely, yeah.
23:26.37
Lorie Jones
What about, not regrets exactly, but is there a situation that you can kind of look at along your journey where you would let you would be like, oh gosh, if I knew then what I know now, I definitely would have done that differently.
23:43.34
Stacey Ray
I would say, honestly,
23:48.16
Stacey Ray
you know, I’ve always been very blase about money.
23:53.21
Stacey Ray
And it’s kind of like this attitude I’ve had in my mind. i think um I can always make more. I’ll make more. So if I spend it all now, it’s okay.
24:05.62
Stacey Ray
And I never went into debt to fund my travel. I didn’t even go into debt to fund my company. Okay. Very proud of that.
24:17.03
Lorie Jones
I am too.
24:18.51
Stacey Ray
But I’ve never saved for a rainy day.
24:26.63
Stacey Ray
That’s a bit of a regret for me because now I feel compelled.
24:33.02
Stacey Ray
It’s a double-edged sword. I need to work to make sure that I can, you know, feel comfortable in my, it’s not like I don’t have a stinking penny, but I certainly don’t have enough to just close up shopping, go do my thing.
24:47.70
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
24:50.48
Stacey Ray
But the flip side of that is i can’t imagine not working in doing something I love so much.
25:00.70
Stacey Ray
No. Does that mean my body will cooperate with that? like My mind will cooperate with that? I don’t know. But I would say that’s my biggest regret is that I did not plan for my future like many of my friends who I always… Secret.
25:21.04
Stacey Ray
I used say they’re so cheap.
25:22.92
Lorie Jones
v
25:23.56
Stacey Ray
Why won’t you go out and enjoy yourself? Well, the laugh was on me a little bit because…
25:32.13
Stacey Ray
They’ve got plenty need to do whatever they want to do now.
25:32.17
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
25:36.01
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
25:37.02
Stacey Ray
But then I always convince myself, well, I don’t know about tomorrow. I don’t know if I’ll have tomorrow. I’m live for today.
25:41.35
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
25:43.39
Stacey Ray
so yeah, that’s a little bit.
25:44.31
Lorie Jones
That idea. that’ That’s so interesting because that idea of like a freedom of having freedom of choice. um It sounds like what maybe what you regret is just not having as much freedom of choice.
25:58.28
Lorie Jones
You may still choose to do what you’re doing today.
25:59.21
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
26:00.68
Lorie Jones
You may still choose it, but the freedom of choice.
26:01.14
Stacey Ray
yeah Right. Yeah.
26:04.68
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
26:05.40
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
26:06.53
Lorie Jones
um If you could high five your past self for one financial decision. What would it be and why?
26:16.30
Stacey Ray
oh Oh, if I get high five myself for one financial decision.
26:27.13
Stacey Ray
I pay cash for everything.
26:30.73
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
26:31.07
Stacey Ray
I do not live on credit. I have credit. I don’t live on it.
26:37.43
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
26:37.94
Stacey Ray
And my I do high-five myself for this all the time. If I can’t pay cash, i can’t have it. Now, will I put it on a credit card and pay the balance this month? Of course. I’m not stupid. I want my points and all that kind of stuff.
26:51.70
Lorie Jones
ah Yeah.
26:52.73
Stacey Ray
But I owe nobody.
26:54.37
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
26:54.89
Stacey Ray
Other than my house, you know that kind of thing.
26:57.09
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
26:57.68
Stacey Ray
But I don’t owe credit cards.
26:58.43
Lorie Jones
yeah
26:59.85
Stacey Ray
I’m not in debt. I always laugh when I’ll get something like, oh, we can refinance your blah, blah, blah. And I’m like, no, don’t need to.
27:08.27
Lorie Jones
yeah Yeah, that is, that’s huge.
27:08.57
Stacey Ray
That’s a big high five for me. Yeah.
27:12.08
Lorie Jones
And, and something really important that you must’ve learned early on too, like, because there is that sense of like,
27:20.70
Stacey Ray
I’ll tell you when I learned it, I learned it when I was much, much younger and thought money grew on trees and racked up about quarter of a million dollars worth of debt on credit cards back in the day and ended up having to declare bankruptcy.
27:35.68
Lorie Jones
Oh wow.
27:41.69
Stacey Ray
And that was a bazillion years ago. And I’ve actually never said that out loud in public, but I think I think it’s important to acknowledge because I learned
27:57.55
Stacey Ray
this is not a thing. you know
27:59.36
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
28:01.14
Stacey Ray
What did you do? What were you thinking? I didn’t even need that stuff. I didn’t even know what I could. Lori, I could not tell you what the money was spent on.
28:11.84
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
28:12.61
Stacey Ray
You know, it’s funny, my husband was a retired Marine and you um he had hundreds of troops that reported to him.
28:13.49
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
28:21.78
Stacey Ray
And he said that the hardest thing always for him was the young, um I’ll call them newbies because I can’t remember all the terms he used, but they would come in and then he would get called in.
28:33.11
Lorie Jones
yeah
28:36.93
Stacey Ray
This was back in the, you know, earlier days of the military. before, you know, when people actually wrote checks and the banks would call and these these kids were like completely overdrawn on their accounts and he’d go, you know, like, I’ve got all these bad checks, what are you doing?
28:53.40
Stacey Ray
They all kept saying to him, but I thought as long as I had checks, I had money.
28:59.42
Lorie Jones
Oh, no.
29:02.37
Stacey Ray
And it always reminds me of that.
29:02.32
Lorie Jones
Oh, no.
29:03.73
Stacey Ray
It’s like, well, as long as I have the cards, I can spend them.
29:06.38
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
29:07.15
Stacey Ray
but that was back in the day. And you know, right after women were allowed to get their own credit cards, it was like well the wild, wild west. There was not a credit card I didn’t have.
29:18.24
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
29:18.62
Stacey Ray
Okay. Gas cards, airline cards, you know, any card you can imagine.
29:27.68
Lorie Jones
yeah
29:28.57
Stacey Ray
And I learned my lesson. I said, never, ever, ever, ever, ever again.
29:33.59
Lorie Jones
it’s It’s important, I think, to remember that you learned that lesson and you and you lived by it the rest of your life. Like, sometimes we have to learn the lessons the hard way.
29:40.76
Stacey Ray
Yes.
29:44.57
Lorie Jones
I found it with myself. I found it with my kids. I found it with, you know, the people I talk to. we just, we can’t learn from other people’s experience.
29:50.86
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
29:53.91
Lorie Jones
but But sometimes that niggling, you know, the sharing of that experience does help.
29:54.12
Stacey Ray
No.
29:59.68
Stacey Ray
Yeah, it does.
30:02.02
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah.
30:03.15
Stacey Ray
And I’ve been very blessed. I mean, I’ve always worked very, very hard. You know, nobody’s ever given me anything. But I can tell you that, you know, while I may owe a mortgage on my house, 100% everything in it and outside of it is paid for in full.
30:26.36
Stacey Ray
So I can sleep at night.
30:28.30
Lorie Jones
Yeah,
30:28.77
Stacey Ray
And that was always one of the things that my husband said about travel. We would never take a trip that we owed money on because the thought of coming home and now having to pay for that glorious time was revolting.
30:44.55
Stacey Ray
was like, no, I wouldn’t be able to enjoy the trip. So yeah.
30:49.01
Lorie Jones
yeah. yeah
30:50.25
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
30:51.92
Lorie Jones
What scared you the most when you started out on your journey? And does it still scare you today not? Mm-hmm.
31:06.34
Stacey Ray
What scared me the most was that this wouldn’t be an attractive option for my demographic that I was targeting to travel the women.
31:21.01
Stacey Ray
What scares me now is
31:29.50
Stacey Ray
scaling, scaling the business. because just when you think, okay, now, you know, we’ve had this growth spurt, now we settled down and now all of a sudden unexpectedly you another growth spurt and you know, it’s like that scaling thing.
31:46.36
Stacey Ray
And I have an obligation to make sure that i take care of our team and make sure they’re okay. ah Not only financially, but mentally, emotionally and enjoy working here, but
32:00.78
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
32:03.88
Stacey Ray
I also have a fiduciary responsibility to our clients to make sure that they get what we say they’re going to get and that they experience, excuse me, what we promise.
32:19.41
Stacey Ray
And I think when you’re scaling and you’re always in that mode,
32:30.29
Stacey Ray
I think it feels a little overwhelming sometimes, you know.
32:36.70
Stacey Ray
i know we need to do this to grow, but we have the systems in place to do that? and
32:44.04
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
32:44.82
Stacey Ray
you know, it’s the triaging and the priorities and all that. And thank goodness I have a team that is also acutely aware of those concerns. And, and, and we do work together to collaborate and make sure that we deliver excellence.
33:03.93
Stacey Ray
And, you know, our philosophy is that your clients aren’t only external, they’re internal as well. And so being able to work together with people who have such great ideas and what have you, take away some of that fear, you know?
33:18.54
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. yeah Yeah. That’s interesting. And I think that’s super important because you have built a culture and the whole company started on a culture, the idea of sisterhood and and developing that community and that connection.
33:34.14
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
33:34.15
Lorie Jones
And as you scale, that is still the piece you you have to have to make it.
33:38.82
Stacey Ray
Yes. Exactly. You know, because you’ve seen it so many times with organizations, you know, whether they be growing from small to midsize or midsize to large or corporate conglomerates, you see where that is so easily taken out of the equation, all the things.
33:41.35
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
33:59.88
Stacey Ray
And is very, very difficult as an entrepreneur to know that your obligation is do what’s best for the bottom line. But you have to remember that the bottom line isn’t just money.
34:13.58
Stacey Ray
It’s about people, right?
34:15.27
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
34:16.60
Stacey Ray
That’s a hard thing to juggle. And I’m sure that you know that for sure.
34:20.64
Lorie Jones
yeah Yeah.
34:23.57
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
34:23.82
Lorie Jones
Yeah. It’s a balancing act, but the people are, ah you know, the bottom line actually, i think is, isn’t money. you yeah It is the people, it is the the business, the heart, the
34:33.49
Stacey Ray
Right. Right.
34:37.64
Lorie Jones
connection, the soul that you have and, but you got to make the money fit so that you don’t starve to death.
34:40.60
Stacey Ray
Exactly. Yeah, exactly. yeah Making that money fit.
34:43.48
Lorie Jones
Right.
34:45.45
Stacey Ray
Right. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.
34:49.41
Lorie Jones
So, um, what about, I’m so interested in this question because you work with women in a, you know, in a travel sense, but did you face any unique challenges because you were a woman?
35:02.57
Stacey Ray
Yes. um I will say that, you know, first of all, ageism is a big thing.
35:10.85
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. huh
35:11.54
Stacey Ray
so you know, i am now 66 years old. And so when I officially got the company up and running, it was 60, I guess I was 62 when I started doing this.
35:27.16
Stacey Ray
And
35:30.32
Stacey Ray
I think dealing in an industry that’s traditionally been led by men, especially at the supplier level where I’m asked to negotiate rates and and perks and all those kinds of things.
35:46.06
Stacey Ray
The fact that I’m a woman and an older woman at that and wanting to focus on women travel, that was a hard nut to crack. And so I decided one day that I would speak to them just like I’ve been spoken to in my whole career.
36:00.19
Stacey Ray
And it became a, I’m not messing around. I can bring a lot to your table. Do you want my business or not? Because guess what? You’re not the only game in town.
36:12.15
Stacey Ray
That has helped a lot instead of being, you know, nice Stacy. I can still be like nice Stacy, but in a very firm commanding way.
36:24.81
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
36:25.20
Stacey Ray
And so that has helped. The other thing is that women tend to be crueler to other women than even men are sometimes, especially from a sense of competitiveness.
36:39.92
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
36:40.69
Stacey Ray
And so There have been a lot of people in the industry. I won’t say a lot of people in the industry. There have been some people. And and remember, I know a lot of people in the industry because of you know my other company.
36:54.40
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
36:55.02
Stacey Ray
But there are some women who have not been pleased at our success. And there have been women who are…
37:06.67
Stacey Ray
trying to emulate us and you know, they can’t listen. No one is ever going to be sisterhood travels except sisterhood travels. You know why? Because we have a secret sauce, a special sauce.
37:22.10
Stacey Ray
And they’re never going to figure out what that is. They’re not me.
37:25.00
Lorie Jones
Mm hmm.
37:26.13
Stacey Ray
They’re not our women, but
37:26.75
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
37:31.97
Stacey Ray
And then I also think that if you look at it, even if I wanted to go after venture capital, less than two and a half percent of women owned businesses are given venture capital.
37:46.96
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
37:48.16
Stacey Ray
Now, do I need it to run my business? I do not. Would I want it? It depends on, you know, what type of expansion plans I’m thinking about.
38:03.69
Stacey Ray
But, yeah, so there are challenges, but they become less and less because I become stronger and stronger.
38:04.15
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
38:10.88
Stacey Ray
My team and my company become stronger. And we now have a lot of playing clout that we did not have when I first started.
38:19.74
Lorie Jones
Yeah. yeah I think that’s interesting that the idea of like, kind of there are the idea of abundance versus scarcity kind of is what it it sounds like, you know, like they’re like the abundance mindset is there’s enough for everybody and they’ll, they’ll just be more pie.
38:32.92
Stacey Ray
yeah
38:38.90
Stacey Ray
Exactly.
38:42.26
Lorie Jones
And the scarcity is like, there’s only enough pie for three people. So if you, if you win, I lose.
38:46.79
Stacey Ray
it and And that is what I’m always saying. I’m like, and because I love how you refer to it as abundance versus scarcity, because I always talk about that. And I say,
39:00.55
Stacey Ray
How many women are there in this country? You know, in the world, ah hundreds of millions, right? Billions.
39:09.32
Stacey Ray
They’re not all going to be a perfect fit for me. They may be a perfect fit for you. we are People will always ask me about my competitors. I’ll be honest with you.
39:19.79
Stacey Ray
I don’t speak about competitors because I don’t feel like I have any.
39:23.96
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
39:24.61
Stacey Ray
We are special competitors. Those companies are special in whatever they do. and I don’t worry that I have to steal their customers and I would hope they don’t think they have to steal mine.
39:40.32
Stacey Ray
you know, we have an 85% return rate from our clients. I think that is phenomenal. Actually, i think it’s freaking phenomenal because, you know, in a world where customer loyalty is kind of fly by night, we have women who have taken, you know, many women who have taken five, 10, 15 trips with us.
40:01.48
Stacey Ray
That’s a lot.
40:02.69
Lorie Jones
Yeah, that’s a lot of travel.
40:03.50
Stacey Ray
And, and they keep coming back and they keep bringing people to the table.
40:03.78
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
40:07.69
Stacey Ray
And, know, You know, so I, I’m all about abundance, just like you are. There’s plenty for everyone.
40:14.20
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
40:15.95
Stacey Ray
I’m going to do me. You do you and you do not need to make us enemies.
40:17.79
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
40:24.04
Stacey Ray
The only thing that I don’t appreciate is when people take my exact verbiage or my language.
40:24.01
Lorie Jones
yeah
40:30.87
Stacey Ray
It’s amazing how the word, you know, we’re trademarked, but
40:33.71
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
40:35.77
Stacey Ray
It’s amazing how many people are out on the media calling them, you know trying to use my verbiage about sisterhood.
40:42.92
Lorie Jones
yeah Yeah.
40:44.67
Stacey Ray
But she’s not authentic.
40:44.97
Lorie Jones
and yeah Yeah.
40:47.28
Stacey Ray
So, yeah.
40:47.96
Lorie Jones
yeah What is the thing, Stacey, that you are most proud of?
40:54.44
Stacey Ray
My daughter. My daughter is almost 40 years old and she is now the chief operating officer of our company.
41:03.07
Lorie Jones
yay.
41:04.30
Stacey Ray
And she is
41:10.14
Stacey Ray
the best parts of me, plus more is what how I feel about her because she is where I am very driven and direct and let’s go, let’s move. No time to, no rest for the weary. My daughter is
41:33.16
Stacey Ray
brilliant, but she’s a thinker and an analyst, and she has the ability to look at things from a 360. Now, there are times when that annoys the heck out of This is taking too long, okay?
41:48.69
Stacey Ray
But the truth is,
41:52.99
Stacey Ray
I’m going to leave a legacy to her that she is going to make even better than it is now.
41:58.09
Lorie Jones
yeah
42:00.92
Stacey Ray
And then, of course, is the fact that she’s one of the most loving, kindest, compassionate people I’ve ever met. So I may sound biased because she is my daughter, aye I can’t think of anyone that i would rather have running my company as I move into, you know, the other parts of the company. But also, she’s just a beautiful human being.
42:30.63
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
42:31.27
Stacey Ray
So, yeah.
42:32.65
Lorie Jones
I love that.
42:33.96
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
42:34.02
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Any advice for a young lady who’s kind of just starting down the path that you’re already so successful at? If somebody were to, to try and do what you’re doing today and just getting started, what would you tell her?
42:51.92
Stacey Ray
um There’s a couple of things that I would say. First of all,
42:58.86
Stacey Ray
but
43:01.36
Stacey Ray
People love to believe in their own ideas, but we never believe in ourselves as much as the idea.
43:08.67
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm.
43:10.11
Stacey Ray
Learn to believe in yourself first. If you believe in yourself first, the ideas become more, you become more confident about your ideas.
43:24.58
Stacey Ray
That’s number one. Know your true value. i see so many women who and I’ve actually written about this um on a couple articles, but I see so many women who underestimate their own value.
43:45.02
Stacey Ray
You know, they, they, they price things too low because they think, you know, people, and I’ve learned people are suspicious when things are too cheap because it’s not so much about the price. It’s about the value.
44:04.79
Stacey Ray
And I say this all the time and I’m sure you have to. Price is what you pay. Value is what you get. If you are thinking about becoming an entrepreneur and starting your own business.
44:20.42
Stacey Ray
Never, ever, ever make your decisions based on price, make them based on value and make the, offer its experiences, not things.
44:33.09
Lorie Jones
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
44:34.44
Stacey Ray
Like I don’t offer destinations. I offer experiences that connect with people on a, whatever level it connects with them.
44:46.61
Stacey Ray
So that would be my number one piece of advice. Believe in yourself. And and number two would be um value overpricing. And number three, don’t let the naysayers talk you out of what you believe in.
45:08.20
Lorie Jones
Yeah, that’s hard.
45:10.26
Stacey Ray
yeah
45:10.99
Lorie Jones
They do. They do tend to have opinions about just about everything, don’t they? And and sometimes it feels I don’t know, maybe not to you, but to me, sometimes it feels like, well, I don’t think I can do what she’s doing, so I’m going to tear her down.
45:16.22
Stacey Ray
That’s
45:24.54
Stacey Ray
ah right. Absolutely. Absolutely. You know, I find women have a habit of tearing each other down. And don’t know if it comes from insecurity or jealousy or just…
45:36.89
Stacey Ray
cruelty. I’m not sure, but what yeah you’ve seen that meme, I know that, you know, it says, uh, I don’t have to, ah turn off another woman’s light bulb for me to shine.
45:49.61
Lorie Jones
Right, right. Yeah.
45:50.54
Stacey Ray
And, and I feel that way very strongly.
45:52.93
Lorie Jones
Yeah. Yeah. yeah
45:54.86
Stacey Ray
I can be thrilled for you. It does not diminish me in any way. ah We’re sisters, man. I need to applaud you and support you.
46:06.46
Stacey Ray
And, you know, it’s amazing.
46:07.73
Lorie Jones
ah
46:11.06
Stacey Ray
You know, all my life, I thought I was working toward, I’ve always been a bit of an advocate, not a bit of an advocate. I have activist. I have been an activist, but,
46:23.01
Stacey Ray
I always thought for women, someday, my children, my grandchildren will have a whole new world that I never expected. Never thought I would see happen.
46:35.80
Stacey Ray
a And now I’m watching so many changes that feel very horrible to me.
46:40.50
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
46:43.86
Stacey Ray
And so I think if we women were to stick together and support each other there would not be so much power to take away what we’ve worked so hard for, you Yes.
46:57.52
Lorie Jones
yeah Yeah.
46:59.12
Stacey Ray
yeah
46:59.05
Lorie Jones
I love that idea. And that really does feed right into your idea of sisterhood and growing and my personal love of empowering women.
47:06.93
Stacey Ray
yes
47:07.15
Lorie Jones
um And I think that that, I think that’s the answer is like we do as women, we do have a lot of power and we, and together we’re practically unstoppable. Yeah.
47:17.59
Stacey Ray
Exactly. The problem is we got to stick together with one voice. Even, listen, I’m not going to agree with every single thing that everybody on the planet says that, you know, sounds, you know, idealistic or what have you, but my role will always be to advocate for women.
47:44.59
Stacey Ray
We should have a place at every table and our voices matter, you know, and that’s, you know, one of the joys for me with what we do is, you know, you want to talk about empowerment is i have watched so many women build brand new life skills.
48:07.53
Stacey Ray
You know, they’ve never flown before. They’ve never flown by themselves. They’ve never traveled out of the country. They don’t even know how to pack a suitcase or what a converter and adapter is for foreign currency.
48:20.14
Stacey Ray
They’re learning these skills and the confidence, Lori, that they are building in themselves. You see them start with, I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous, I’m so nervous, which is completely normal and to be expected.
48:35.48
Stacey Ray
And then all of a sudden they’re mentoring other women. Well, I did this. You can do it. It’s a piece of cake.
48:40.87
Lorie Jones
yeah
48:41.28
Stacey Ray
you know i It’s the most beautiful thing to watch women who society is telling us to be invisible, be quiet. We’re not interested in what you have to say.
48:54.58
Stacey Ray
And these women are going, oh, heck no. I’m not going to be invisible. i am invincible. And look out world, here I come.
49:00.82
Lorie Jones
oh
49:04.26
Lorie Jones
Oh, I love that.
49:04.43
Stacey Ray
At an age that it’s it’s way more satisfying at this age to accomplish new things than it was when we were young. I will say that.
49:12.66
Lorie Jones
Yeah.
49:13.97
Stacey Ray
I don’t know if you find that to be true, but for me, most definitely true.
49:13.99
Lorie Jones
Yeah. ah I love that. I really do love that.
49:21.05
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
49:21.19
Lorie Jones
The invincible, not invisible.
49:21.31
Stacey Ray
I
49:23.69
Lorie Jones
And, and I love the idea of, that’s what I, you know, have, I have the some of those same feelings with my clients as I watch them go from,
49:31.37
Stacey Ray
don’t know.
49:33.93
Lorie Jones
from being a silent partner financially to taking control of their financial future, to to understanding how to do taxes, how to do you know ah banking, how to do investing, and not knowing, being scared, not knowing that they can do it, and then having them turn around and develop that confidence.
49:46.54
Stacey Ray
Right.
49:52.09
Lorie Jones
Like everything you said, i can see in my clients too.
49:54.19
Stacey Ray
Yeah.
49:56.33
Lorie Jones
And I love that. I love that for them.
49:59.03
Stacey Ray
Yeah. It’s a very big deal because gosh, I, I think I’ve heard so many women, even with my mom or whomever.
50:10.92
Stacey Ray
not believing that they had the power. You know, the so many times I hear, oh, it’s too late for me now. It’s too late for me now. No, it’s not. Listen, when my grandfather died, my grandmother tripled his estate in the stock market. Okay?
50:26.27
Stacey Ray
was 80. Okay. she was eighty
50:29.62
Lorie Jones
yeah yeah yeah
50:30.91
Stacey Ray
So you can’t tell me it can’t be done, but that’s why i also love women like you who are giving women the their power back.
50:42.46
Lorie Jones
i have to be willing to take it now i love that well
50:43.36
Stacey Ray
But the women have to be willing to take it back. Right. Yeah.
50:49.14
Lorie Jones
Stacey, I have just loved our conversation. Thank you so much for doing this.
50:52.03
Stacey Ray
Me too.
50:53.34
Lorie Jones
Is there, if I have a listener who wants to reach out and ask, you know, ask questions or, or get the benefit of your wisdom, how do they do that?
50:54.24
Stacey Ray
Oh, my God.
51:02.87
Stacey Ray
they So they can go to our website, sisterhoodtravels.com. We have very easy ways to contact us right on the website. And we also have our YouTube channel, which is under Sisterhood Travels. And we highly recommend that women subscribe and watch. We’ve got video shorts, we’ve got full episodes, we’ve got so much on there.
51:30.02
Stacey Ray
And of course, all the social media stuff, which is all those links are available on the website too.
51:36.20
Lorie Jones
Perfect. And I will put the link to your podcast on that as well, because I know you do a podcast.
51:41.46
Stacey Ray
Thank you.
51:41.87
Lorie Jones
So I’ll put that in the show notes as well. Thank you so much, Stacey, for your time.
51:45.57
Stacey Ray
Thank you. What a great way to spend my time today.
51:51.04
Lorie Jones
A good way to start the week, right?
51:53.53
Stacey Ray
Absolutely.
51:54.86
Lorie Jones
Oh, thank you.
51:55.96
Stacey Ray
Thank